Monthly Archives: June 2012

**The year is 2012 and humanity is living in a golden age of technology and interactiveness. Our world is smaller than ever and we are continually making progress in plenty of areas involving human rights and acceptance (some faster than others) and although it may seem like a large portion of the world is still lacking in the human decency department, there’s definitely a bigger sense of global community and oneness then ever before in history and every year brings with it promise and hope for a better future. This is the good news. Of course the rise of this unprecedented connectivity with our fellow human beings has also given birth to an increase in something very dark and very damaging not only to society as a whole but to each and every one of us. Judgment. It may sound trivial and a little ridiculous but I truly believe this to be a poison and a real threat to our everyday happiness and long term evolution as human beings.*Think about it. Almost all of our number one rated shows in North America rely so completely on judging others and deciding what’s good and what isn’t. We’re completely bombarded with top tens, best dressed lists, box office numbers, album sales, polarizing political punditry, elimination shows, award seasons and worst of all comment pages. It’s the age of “The Troll” and thanks to social media, everyone has an opinion and everyone gets to play judge and jury sentencing whatever they deem bad to ridicule and worthlessness. It’s not new but it is growing at an incredible rate and there are no signs of it slowing down anytime soon.*Now I’m not suggesting having an opinion is wrong or that everything is inherently good and nothing should be critisized, but there is something more to consider at play here. We all know criticizing someone else and putting them down for whatever reason makes the one being judged feel bad, but what about the repreccusions to the one doing the judging? A fleeting moment of feeling superior perhaps or maybe a small sense of satisfaction in having better “taste”, but if you really stop and take notice, the bigger emotions that tend to creep up are anger and annoyance fueling the inevitable fire that is cynicism until everything sucks and life feels dull and uninspiring. It’s a terrible life to create for yourself and we all help make that world a reality all the time every day. But what if we didn’t?*What if instead of “hating” that song we always hear, we let it exist knowing that it might bring joy to someone else? What if instead of secretly looking down on that person we pass on the street wearing something we don’t approve of, we smiled at them and let them dress the way they want? What if we applauded effort instead of scoffing at results? Enjoyed part of something instead of complaining about all of it? Felt a moment of gratitude instead of a moment of hate? Would that really be so hard? Wouldn’t we all be way happier and less angry all the time? Yes. The answer is yes. We encourage ourselves to be miserable every time we discourage someone else for simply being. So what if we stopped?*That’s what this challenge is all about. Asking yourself a simple question every time you experience something you don’t like or agree with; Am I going to judge or feel empathy? It’s that simple. You can decide in every moment how you want to feel about something so why not let yourself feel good? Hating something affects you more than anyone else and the more negative thoughts you have the more negative emotions you feel and the more jaded you become. It’s an evil poison that infects us all and prevents us from enjoying life to the fullest so why not change it?*I’m not asking you to like everything and love everyone and move to a farm to start a commune with your brothers and sisters of the earth, I’m just posing a small challenge to change the way you think. Forget about changing what you write or what you say out loud to people or even what you tweet. For now, this challenge is only about your thoughts and changing how you view the world. Just try it for one day or even just for one hour. Find something good in something you think is bad. Find something to enjoy about something that annoys you. Allow yourself to feel a moment of contentment instead of wishing that moment away. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. We all want to be truly happy in life and it really isn’t such a hard thing to do. Start loving as much of the world as you can and the world will always 100% of the time love you back. 🙂 Or you can dismiss this all as stupid hippy bullshit and keep on trolling. Just remember It’s always your choice.*